Chris Barden
Mr. Chris Barden has 41 years of industry experience in all phases of engineering. Mr. Barden began his career with Amoco Production Company in 1975 in Lafayette, Louisiana. In 1978, Mr. Barden became a senior engineer with Union Texas Petroleum Company. From 1980 to 1986, Mr. Barden was a founding partner in a consulting engineering firm that specialized in total project engineering and management for oil companies across the entire United States, but primarily in South Louisiana. In 1986, he became the Executive Vice President and Chief of Operations of Republic Mineral Corporation. When Texas Meridian purchased the properties of Republic Mineral Corporation in January 1990, Mr. Barden became the Vice President of Texas Meridian Resources Corporation, in charge of all reservoir engineering, production and drilling operations in seven (7) states. He was elevated to Sr. Vice President of Operations when Texas Meridian was acquired by Transfuel Resources, Inc. While at Transfuel, Mr. Barden managed a staff of over 100. Transfuel was sold to Whiting and Mr. Barden began his own independent consulting firm in 1994, which led to his retention as a Senior Engineer with the energy asset-marketing firm of Albrecht & Associates, Inc. in 1995. While at Albrecht & Associates, Inc., Mr. Barden analyzed numerous oil & gas properties for sale and acquisition. During his tenure with the firm, the firm sold in excess of $200MM worth of oil and gas assets. In 1998, Mr. Barden joined with Wes Franklin and consulted for numerous companies providing geological, operational and reservoir engineering services. As an example, Barden and Franklin were contracted by the unsecured creditors in the Shape Energy bankruptcy. With the current producing properties, there were not enough assets in the company to pay the unsecured creditors more than 15% of what they were owed. Barden and Franklin were able to identify additional undeveloped value in Sharp’s offshore properties. This information was presented to the bankruptcy judge and a new well was proposed. This recommendation, which had to be approved by the senior debt holder, led to an additional well being drilled, after which, enough value was added and all of the creditors were paid in full. In 2007, Mr. Barden and Wes Franklin formed Mantle Oil & Gas LLC and have been involved in the geological and reservoir evaluation, drilling and operating fields mainly in North and South Texas and South Louisiana. This is both for Mantle’s own interest and as a consultant for other oil companies. Mr. Barden has been involved in horizontal drilling since 2003. Some of his activities in horizontal plays include: Drilled three horizontal wells in 2003, to the Georgetown formation in Maverick County, TX. The third well cored the Eagle Ford to evaluate the potential showed by mud log shows. This was before the Eagle Ford was proven to be economically productive. In 2004, he was involved in purchasing over 12,000 acres in the Woodford Shale play in South East Oklahoma. This was before the Woodford Shale had been proven to be economically viable. By 2008, he had interests in over 400 Woodford wells, which were drilled by 7 different operators. Over 200 of the wells were operated and while Mr. Barden was not directly responsible for the daily drilling activities, he was responsible for the design of the well paths and the completions of the wells. By having interests with multiple operators, valuable experience was gained learning from each operator the most effective practices for drilling and completing shale wells. In 2010, he assisted in the evaluation and oversaw the acquisition of over 15,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale play. He was preparing to begin drilling operations and the decision was made to sell 80% of the acreage to Geo Resources and they became the operator. He assisted Geo Resources Inc. in the drilling design of their initial wells. In the past three years, he, along with Mr. Barden and Franklin, supervised the drilling and production of 7 underbalanced Buda wells in South Texas, 9 Eagle Ford Shale wells and 2 dual-lateral Austin Chalk wells in South Texas. Mr. Barden has been directly responsible for 1) economic evaluation of numerous fields and prospects, 2) designing, drilling and completing over 500 wells, including numerous horizontal wells, 3) operating and producing several thousand wells and 4) has managed a staff of over 100 personnel. He is a graduate of Auburn University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and is a Registered Professional Petroleum Engineer in the State of Louisiana.